Elon Musk's social media platform X has caused widespread anger after users used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change images of women by taking off their garments.
Several examples have been seen where the system has been used to remove clothing from women to make them appear in swimwear without consent, as well as to put them in sexualized scenarios.
Developer Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the organization behind Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, aside from an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government representative stated that new laws is being proposed to outlaw image stripping tools. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "receive a prison sentence and heavy penalties".
"X or Grok could prevent these types of abuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the danger" of people seeing unlawful material on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in concerning AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some premium functions—which answers X users' requests when they reference it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to offer commentary or more context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to alter an uploaded photo through its AI image editing function.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The tool has been criticised for permitting users to produce pictures and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was in the past accused of creating sexually explicit material of public figures.
"The platform has been enabling the creation and spread of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have yet to see any challenge by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "depicting images of persons in a sexually explicit manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or circulate deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and stated this covered sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "suitable measures" to "minimize the risk" of users encountering illegal content on their platforms and to remove it promptly when they are notified of it.
